I dropped my old friend Michael down to the station in Figueres this morning so he could catch a train back to his home in Andalucía. It’s not a long trip for me, about an hour and a half down into Spain and it saved him a mountain of kerfuffle getting train connections between France and Spain.
As a result I had an hour and a half in the car by myself on a perfect day, sunshine and wind, to travel back over the Pyrenees home and plenty of time to let the mind wander on the journey, which is a particularly interesting one.
This road, through the Pyrenees is an ancient one and has been much used in history. It is the first pass through the Pyrenees travelling west along the mountains from the Mediterranean. On modern motorways of course it is easily passed over but you will notice that on the French side of the border there are several long viaducts which, historically, would have been much more difficult to negotiate. This however didn’t stop the Catalans as the ancient nation of Catalonia manages to spread out on both sides of the mountains, north at least to Perpignan and south to Barcelona and indeed east to the Balearic Islands. The old kings of the area, the Kings of Majorca, lived in their palace in Perpignan. Indeed this area was always staunchly independent being ruled by the house of Aragon from Toulouse until the French king (and the pope) used the excuse of the Cathars to launch the first crusade against them and bring them into the kingdom of France. This I surmise is the reason why most of my neighbours hold Paris in some contempt.
It would have been through these very roads that the moors made sorties up from Moorish Spain, right up through France- and through this pass that Hannibal passed, with his magnificent herd of elephants, using the Roman Via Domitia. This road is the road I am travelling on today. Now it has of course six lanes and a different sort of behemoth thunders along but La Languedocienne still passes along the path created by the Romans which was Hannibal’s route to the Alps and into Italy.
During the last war this pass was also a crossroad of refugees running in both directions, left wing Spaniards herded into camps in Argeles and Jewish refugees, often children being smuggled out of German France towards Portugal and freedom in America.
All along the road from Perpignan up to Narbonne I pass along the Mediterranean, but always separated from the sea itself by Les Etangs, the huge salt lakes which are a feature of this part of the Med. The train also follows the coast from Perpignan and it was in this train, on a journey to Beziers that Charles Trenet wrote his most famous song;

La Mer :

Voyez
Près des étangs
Ces grands roseaux mouillés
Voyez
Ces oiseaux blancs
Et ces maisons rouillées
La mer
Les a bercés
Le long des golfes clairs
Et d’une chanson d’amour
La mer
A bercé mon coeur pour la vie.

And I must admit that, even away from the sea, the whole road looks spectacular on a clear April day. You pass along right under Canigou, Prince of mountains and sacred to the Catalans, still capped with snow and awe inspiringly high. Even the valley roads cut out through the folds of the mountains are all a uniform pale purple with the Tamarisk bushes, the Judas Trees and the copious wild Valerian all matching beautifully.
When I woke up first this morning I confess that I cursed inwardly at the notion of a three hour journey down and back from Spain but, strangely, sometimes a good deed is its own reward and I enjoyed very much my passage back through history on the way home in the car.